Next-Best
by Stephane Richer
Summary: what's wrong with wanting to make the one you love happy when he's so good at making himself suffer?


Next-Best

Disclaimer: don't own

Notes: Day 19 of the 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge by ghiraher on tumblr: vampire au

* * *

Sometimes life is very unfair. More accurately, Tatsuya is very unfair, with his smooth voice and gorgeous face and lithe limbs and the way he looks over his shoulder and flashes a crooked grin at Shuuzou that he has to know by now is ridiculously gorgeous. But he's just going by the reactions of a hundred or so years, faint memories of a past him who lived so long ago who could glance back from behind the glass and offer an image. Did he look the same back then? Were his eyes that weary and troubled? Did he have a different hairstyle? They're stupid questions, maybe, questions he probably ever won't get answers to. It's unfair how difficult Tatsuya is sometimes, how cagey he is and how he turns away with his whole body, how in over a hundred years he has gotten used to sharing less and less about himself.

They can't take photographs of the two of them together; Tatsuya won't show up no matter how hard Shuuzou tries, how many tricks he uses. He doesn't show up in the mirror, either; the light passes right through him and it's just not fair that he can't see how ethereal his beauty is, how insanely happy he looks sometimes (it's unfair that he's had so much longer to practice keeping his emotions in check, and perhaps it's better if he thinks he's succeeding all the time because he looks even more gorgeous when he smiles, really smiles, at Shuuzou that Shuuzou feels like he's going to crack in half). They had a man on the street draw caricatures of them one day, acted like tourists and paid the ridiculously high price for a drawing that doesn't look too much like them but at least it's something. At least it's them and they're together and it's written down; it's permanent (until the cheap paper crumbles and fades with time and light, but it's the best they can do for now).

They could make this permanent; every time Tatsuya feeds on him Shuuzou wonders if this time he will, this time he'll suck out enough blood to make him black out, inject his venom into Shuuzou's veins and freeze him as he is. He's asked but Tatsuya always refuses, always gets twitchy and cagey again. There's no going back once he's turned—but Shuuzou would be an idiot not to know that, an idiot not to see something akin to regret cross Tatsuya's face when they're walking down the street and they see an older couple or even just a random middle-aged person; everyone wants to be young forever but Tatsuya is sick of it. There's only one way out for him and it's as irreversible as his youth. And there are things Shuuzou would have liked to do, things like grow old together with the one he loves and retire and have children and grandchildren which might not happen anyway even if he remains human.

Which isn't to say his relationship with Tatsuya is perfect; it's really, really not. They have achingly drawn-out fights sometimes when Tatsuya's passive-aggressiveness makes the tension burst like surface tension on a full glass of water that's been rocked too hard; Shuuzou yells and is harsher than Tatsuya can take but he doesn't care in the heat of the moment because he's had it with all the insinuations and twisting and Tatsuya tries to guilt him into feeling sorry for him and Shuuzou says the only thing he pities is Tatsuya's own self-pity and Tatsuya's mouth becomes a firm white line and Shuuzou regrets half the things he's said already but storms out anyway and all the fresh air in the world won't do him any good because he's too worried about Tatsuya.

Sometimes they fight about Shuuzou being turned; try as he may Shuuzou can't convince Tatsuya that he really and honestly wants to do it, that he's okay with being with him forever. It's scary but he's made his peace with the idea long ago, and it would make Tatsuya a hell of a lot less lonely. It seems more difficult to him to have to grow older while Tatsuya stays the same, to grow farther and farther apart, more so than they already are, to see the relationship disintegrate in front of their eyes, to die and have to leave Tatsuya, to become dust while Tatsuya is still young and beautiful. It's a no-brainer, between that and living forever with Tatsuya.

The only drawback is how guilty Tatsuya would feel; he internalizes everything and a person so set in his ways will not change that easily; it's like trying to move an entire apartment building while pushing on his own; it's too heavy and he cannot accomplish anything on his own and there is no one to help him. He cannot shake Tatsuya's foundations when Tatsuya shakes his own to the core, and no matter how much he would enjoy being a vampire there would always be a stronger undercurrent of regret; there's already almost too much for Shuuzou to deal with. He can't convince Tatsuya that he'd be okay, that this is fully his decision, and maybe he'd be doing it for Tatsuya, too, but what's wrong with wanting to make the one you love happy when he's so good at making himself suffer?

But there's no way to convince him, no way to make him see how happy he is, no way to let him know how much he loves him—no matter how much he says it Tatsuya never really believes him. One day this frustration's really going to boil over; one day it'll explode and there will be nothing left to salvage this relationship with. One day they won't be able to take this tension; it's not too far off in the future by Shuuzou's estimates. But he'll stay until that day because even though Tatsuya likes to think he's the selfish one Shuuzou can be pretty selfish, too; he wants as much of Tatsuya as he can get. And if he can't have forever he'll take the next-best thing.


End file.
